Brian's midnight rambles

I am, unfortunately, prone to insomnia. When my mind gets going at night, there is often no hope for me as far as sleep goes. My wife gets mad at me in her sleep because of my tossing and turning. She isn't even aware of it (most of the time), but she makes these little unhappy noises whenever I move. It doesn't help that our bed is slightly undersized for the two of us.

Often when I'm struggling with insomnia, I figure it's better to be productive instead of staring at the ceiling for hours and ruining the quality of my wife's sleep, so I get up to do some work. This is most often done in the other room of our flat, but sometimes I go to one of the computer labs or to my study room. I did that this morning, in fact. I woke up just after 3:30 and knew right away that I wasn't going to be able to fall back asleep, so I walked to the study room and was at work by 4:00. It's now 7:30, and I'll soon go back home to make some breakfast for everyone.

These are some of the perks, by the way, of being a postgraduate. You get a great study room (shared with some delightful other DPhil students - maybe I'll blog about them sometime) with 24 hour access and a bunch of other stuff that lowly undergraduates don't get. But I digress.

One of the great delights of my midnight rambles to the computer labs or the study room is that I get to see some of our campus's wonderful wildlife. Living as we do immediately on the edge of the South Downs, which is protected land and some of the most beautiful rolling hills I've ever seen, we get a great assortment of animals and birds. I didn't take any of the below photos as I don't usually bring my camera with me, but they'll give you a good idea of what I've seen on my midnight walks.

I've seen red or grey foxes perhaps five or six times. Foxes here are like raccoons at home. They get into peoples' trash and are considered pests. I quite like them, though, and consider it a great night if I've seen a fox. The ones I've seen have been small, thin, and fast like this one.


I've seen badgers only a couple times. There are many that live around the edges of campus - I've seen their holes - but badgers are sly and a bit tricky to see. The ones here are square and muscular, with sizable claws - very intimidating. Badgers have a rather disagreeable personality, too. If they feel threatened for even a moment, they will fight.

I've heard that from time to time, some students think it's a good idea to try to catch a badger, but the badgers always win. One such student, I'm told, had to go to the hospital afterward because he was cut up so badly. My only question is, how did a student like that get admitted into a university?

I consider it to be a wonderful night if I see a badger.


I've seen countless rabbits just like this one. They're everywhere. We've seen one particular rabbit that lives in the hedge next to the playground many an evening. When we first saw him, he was very small - I think he had just grown up and left his parents. Now he's gotten quite a bit bigger, though he's still not fully grown. We rather like that particular rabbit.


I've seen a few hedgehogs. They're very interesting. Whereas all the other animals won't let you get anywhere near them, hedgehogs just meander around, doing their thing, digging for bugs and the like. If you get too close, they get a bit defensive and make their spines stick up, but otherwise, they don't seem to mind at all if you watch them.


I've only seen two polecats, and even then only for a moment and from a great distance. I understand they're a bit rare. I don't know much about them except that they're related to ferrets.

Those are the best animals, the ones I consider to be a treat on my midnight walks. There are others - a lot of squirrels (though not usually at night), but I'm not much of a squirrel guy. I don't find them very interesting at all. I've seen a good number of bats, but not very well as they tend to stick to the darkest areas, and certainly not well enough to know what kind of bats they are. And all this is to say nothing of the assortment of beautiful birds we see on campus. Except, that is, for the seagull. I've seen so many seagulls that I couldn't possibly count them all. Here's one at the seafront with the pier in the background:
As anyone who has been here for five minutes knows, seagulls are omnipresent in Brighton. And these are not the kind of seagulls you're thinking of, our American friends! These seagulls are big enough to eat American seagulls and aggressive enough to probably do so. I believe Jordan and I are the only people here who actually like them. Most people consider them a nuisance because of their noise, their aggressiveness (I've seen them practically steal food out of peoples' hands!), and the constant fear of where their poop will land. For example, I was sitting outside with some friends a couple months ago when the guy across the table from me was pooped on. And it was a big one. As he was walking in to clean himself off, another one just missed him. As he walked back outside after cleaning himself, he nearly got hit again. He had obviously angered the seagull gods or something, but the rest of us had a pretty good time about it.

But Jordan and I like them because they are so quintessentially Brighton. Whenever we see a seagull again, we will think of our time here. They deserve mentioning with the other animals on my midnight rambles because of a very strange thing they do every night. Sometime between 3:00 and 4:00, they all decide it's time to wake up. I don't know why as they don't do this during the rest of the day, but when they wake up, they all screech with all their might for about half an hour. Sometimes you can have 60-100 seagulls or more screeching loudly all at the same time. Talk about a cacophony! It's enough to wake the dead. This morning they did it at 4:00, so I had the pleasure of hearing it from the study room as I started working. But between the drunken students yelling outside our flat, Iain waking up if he's having a fussy night, the seagull choir, and the owl who occasionally decides to hoot right outside our window about every second for two consecutive hours, some nights we get little sleep at all.

It's breakfast time, I've finished a project, and the sun has been out for 2 1/2 hours. The night is over, so I'd best ramble back home.